In five seconds, Patrick
Fitzgerald, star of the show, will gallop up
the aisle and hop onto stage, trailed by his dog, Cola.

It is Saturday afternoon in a tiny Off-Broadway theater.
Just three more
performances of "The Shaughraun" to go, and all
of them are sold out.
The reviews have been ecstatic. Many have said the play
 a 19th century
comic melodrama  is the best thing to hit the stage
all season.

Surely, the moments to come will be the best of the whole
thrilling run.

Now, Fitzgerald trots toward the aisle, picking up steam
with each step,
glancing back to see that Cola is keeping up. Then Cola
drops a prop she
is carrying in her mouth, a stuffed grouse.

"C'mon girl," Fitzgerald whispers urgently.
They have a cue to make. She gets a new grip on the bird, and Fitzgerald tries to make
up the lost
instant by almost flying to the stage. He is nearly there
when his foot
catches on something. As he sprawls forward, he jabs his
left hand at a
metal ladder that is bolted onto the scenery. The hand
catches behind
the ladder bars, but he is still propelled forward, and
pitches onto the
stage. The hand remains jammed in the ladder. He has
cracked the entire
length of a bone in his hand.

He picks himself up. "You'd want to be careful
around here," ad-libs Fitzgerald. "A young fella could kill himself."
Fortunately, his
appearance in this scene lasts just a few seconds.

He walked backstage and passed out from the pain. A few
other cast
members helped him into a dressing room. The hand was
bleeding. They
found ice up at the concession stand, and he stuck his
hand into it.

"It's probably just the shock," said
Fitzgerald, wincing.
On stage, the play continued. Fitzgerald was not due back
for another 10
minutes or so. Someone found a bottle of Advil, and he
swallowed four
tablets. He rigged his scarf as a sling, to protect the
hand as he plays
the "shaughraun" of the title, an Irish word
meaning vagabond. Dressed
like a bum and grinning like a fool, the shaughraun is
actually agile in
mind and body. He swings through windows and climbs along
roofs. Accused
by a priest of violating a pledge against drinking, he
replies that he
took just "one thimble-full a day, just to take the
cruelty out of the
water."
To accommodate his throbbing hand, Fitzgerald curtailed
the acrobatics. The cast, 14 altogether, never broke stride.

The show, a matinee, ended just after 5:30 p.m.
Fitzgerald jumped into a cab with Ciaran O'Reilly, the
show's producer
and a cast member.

They were due back on stage at 8 p.m. for the next
performance, which
was sold out weeks ago. Among the cast, there was but one
understudy, a
fellow named Banjo. He couldn't stand in for Fitzgerald,
though: Banjo
is the son of Cola.

Ten years ago, O'Reilly and Charlotte Moore started the
Irish Repertory Theater because they felt like it. They had no known
money, no theater,
no actual chance of making it. Now, 30,000 people a year
see four shows a year in a little theater on W. 22nd St. they and
friends built with
their own hands.

In their first production, they cast Fitzgerald, a young
man who had never set foot on stage, in "The Plough and the
Stars." Like most of the
theater's company, he worked a half-dozen other jobs to
keep himself alive. In one bar, he was paid to kill rats in the
basement. Now 36, he
has played on Broadway, with Steppenwolf in Chicago, and
appears in a TV
series called "Poltergeist: The Legacy."

"In 10 years, I never missed a show," said
Fitzgerald. "I never missed a cue."
Someone phoned area emergency rooms, all of which said he
had no chance
of making an 8 p.m. curtain. Only Beth Israel offered a
glimmer, but no
guarantee.

Fitzgerald walked out into a wall of fog that covered E.
16th St., with O'Reilly explaining to a triage nurse why his companion
looked like a
bum and why they had to hurry.

"He's still dressed as his character," said
O'Reilly.

"I never ask," said the nurse.

They registered, were given a new plastic ID card, sent
for X-rays, then parked in a room with a million other people. O'Reilly
looked at his
watch. It was after 7. Not only was poor Fitzgerald's arm
in need of
attention, O'Reilly had a full house of paying customers
waiting. He
found someone in a white coat and laid out the urgency.

"Then we'll have to get going," replied Cheryl
Greenstein, a physician's
assistant, and she began wrapping Fitzgerald's arm in hot
plaster.

They caught a taxi. "Are you smoking?" asked
the driver.

"It's just the plaster on my arm," said
Fitzgerald.

At 8:01, as their cab pulled onto 22nd St. As O'Reilly
paid, they could see the lobby lights flicking on and off.

Fitzgerald called his dog, and they stood at the back of
the theater. In five seconds, they would gallop up the aisle.